Half Life: Hidden Heroes revamped!
by Brighter-Than-A-Thousand-Suns
Summary: This is the edited, revamped version of Half Life: Hidden Heroes. The story of four heroes, unknown to the Half Life storyline. Chapter 3 is up. Don't worry, it gets better.
1. Chapter 1

_I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Combine advisor pods burned by the dozen on the steps of The Citadel. I watched Xenian super portals glitter in the sun on the shores of Shackley beach. All those...moments...will be lost...like tears...in rain._

Griggs' van tore along the cliff road, shaking dangerously whenever it cornered. We didn't care, I was a good driver. It was a pleasant environment: three friends in a van, driving along a road in the middle of no where, loudly singing along to the Bon Jovi we had blaring through the expensive stereo.

"I played my part and you played your game, darling you give love... a bad name!" we all roared in unison.

We turned a corner, and my house came into view, perched on a rock by the sea, far below.

"OK guy and gal, here we are. You like? Yeah, it's kind of...shack-like, but it's good." I said jovially, turning down the music.

"OK, I'm going to be blunt." replied Griggs, craning his head to see it. He was shorter than me. "It's a shack. You should call it 'Shackley'"

The house WAS quite run down. It was old, wooden and perched on a rock at the end of the beach. When the tide was in it completely surrounded the rock, and the only way to get to it was via a small wooden bridge on the lower level of the rock which also housed a garage. The bridge led to a short dirt road which led to the highway high above. When the tide was out, it still surrounded the rock, but it was shallow enough in most parts to walk through, and there was a thin line of sand that could be walked across without getting wet feet, assuming you walked across the bridge first. The house itself had a nice feel to it and once you got inside, it was sunny and warm with an incredible view.

"Don't you get the tide running up and flooding the house?" asked Zoey.

"Nah. It's happened once or twice, but that was like in a typhoon. The tide seldom comes up this far and when it does it doesn't usually get above that mark on the rock." I gestured to a green algae line on the rock.

"What if it does? This house doesn't look like it could sustain it."

"Trust me." I replied, "This house is firmer than you would think. Like I said, it has stood up to typhoons. The worst we ever had was the roof being partially ripped off during one."

Let me explain. Francis Griggs, Zoey Rosenberg and I, William Sheckley, had just arrived at my family's beach house. It had been my suggestion that we come up for a week on our own. We had driven up, Griggs and I at seventeen were legally allowed to drive with passengers, and Zoey who was almost seventeen wasn't, but did anyway. I had driven, but we had taken Griggs' van, as he was the only one who owned a vehicle. The plan was that we would stay there on our own for two or so weeks. We had gotten most of the supplies on the way there, and there were one or two tiny villages with a general store relatively near the house, so we could get anything else from them. Along the coast there were also a few freight companies. There was one house, maybe half a mile away but the owners never stayed there. It was bigger than my family's house. We were miles from any actual town, cut off from society. Just the way I liked it.


	2. Chapter 2

Griggs, Zoey and I had been friends for years. We had started off on rocky beginnings, I was an absolute ass when I met Zoey, and Griggs and I had met after being sent to the principals office after fighting in primary school. When I introduced the two to each other, the conversation ended with Griggs telling Zoey two words, the latter being "off". None of us were quite sure how we had ended up as friends.

We were all very different people. I was a very freedom loving man, always had been. I outright refused to let someone attempt to control me, a thing which had caused great strife over the past few years. For example, I wore a religious necklace, always had done. One day after leaving an assembly at school, one of the school deans had seen me and told me to take it off. I outright refused, and spent the next half hour arguing with him. He told me he would research the subject, and would get back to me. I never heard from him again. Several months later, the assistant principal called me to her office regarding an unrelated absence. That was quickly cleared up, but she too questioned my necklace. I calmly explained my arguments, and she too said she would find out about it. I never heard from her again.

About a year after this saga, my school got a new principal, a foreign and very self important man who insisted on having students stand whenever he entered the room. Many students muttered mutinously behind his back, but none ever did anything. One morning, during history class, he entered the room. Naturally, everyone stood. I didn't. Noticing this, the man questioned me about it. We debated in front of the class then, and my argument was so powerful that the story spread all over the school within hours, and the principal no longer insisted on students standing when he entered the room.

Thus I was well known as a man who would fight for his freedom. This gained me a lot of respect, something which amused me to this day.

I was willing to fight for my freedom, I wanted a rebellion against the oppressive government. My bedroom wall was covered with inspirational quotes such as "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!", and "Live Free or Die", as well as Winston Churchill's famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.

Griggs was more passive than I. He was content with life as it was, relaxed and a tad eccentric. He cared more about his image, and over the years had become quite self conscious. He was hardly a popular guy, preferring to hang out with me and play computer games than go out and get drunk. Things hadn't always been like that; he used to be popular and extremely confident, but in our early days of high school something had happened. He never told me what; we had fallen out of contact around then, but I knew it concerned a girl.

Zoey was almost the polar opposite to Griggs and I. She was very popular, had dozens of friends, and very pretty, causing many of the guys at school to ask her out. This had been going on for years. It wasn't that I was resentful; Zoey and I were just friends. Just friends.

Zoey was also the daughter of the prestigious Dr Stanley Rosenberg. While this did not make much of a difference to her social life, it was very interesting to Griggs and I. Dr Rosenberg had been a top scientist at the mysterious Black Mesa Research Facility in New Mexico. Up until a few years ago, actually. There him and his scientists had created something that would change both us and the world. And not necessarily in a good way.

Over the past three years the three of us had drifted apart. We all went to different schools, and high school changes people. In high school, loyalties change. I had become a powerful guy, well known, respected, but not always liked. Griggs had become quiet, disconnected with school, self conscious. Zoey had become popular, attractive and had made friends with new people.

It was because we were drifting apart that I suggested this holiday. I didn't want our friendship to die. The holiday certainly stopped that.


	3. Chapter 3

Our new lives began as we were doing the simple task of unpacking the van. Griggs was throwing Zoey and I the bags where we then took them into the house. Just as Griggs tossed the final bag to me, the ground shook. My immediate reaction was "earthquake!". But this wasn't like a regular earthquake, this one stopped after two seconds, then started again. Then stopped. Then started. Then stopped. I looked up. There, coming from across the ocean, was a massive, translucent, expanding bubble. It was difficult to make out anything in particular on the other side of the bubble, everything was distorted, but it was possible to make out some shapes. The bubble was peculiar in the sense that it seemed almost pixelated, as if in a computer game. This, however, was no computer game. The bubble traveled towards at an astonishing speed, arriving at us within less than two seconds. It didn't stop there, though, it passed right through us and kept going, though it was now harder to see, it was just a faint shimmer in the air. It kept going, showing no sign of slowing down. As it passed us the ground shook like crazy and several boards and two-by-four's fell from the roof of the garage.

Griggs swore loudly several times. I glared at him, I don't know why, I wasn't exactly one to condemn swearing. "What the hell was that?" I demanded.

"How should I know? You said it was an earthquake." replied Zoey,

"Shut up! Look over there!" exclaimed Griggs,

Over to the south, about fifty yards away, something was happening. I saw a sphere of green light, that I guessed was about a foot in diameter. It was hovering about six feet off the ground, and lasted only about two seconds before disappearing. Before it did, however, an animal appeared around it. It was about three feet tall, and about the same in width. It was green and yellow, had four legs with two claw like arms at the front. It also had wings folded onto its back.

For a few seconds it stood there, looking around. Then it raised its 'head', made strange, loud screeching noise, looked around and then made the same screeching noise again as if trying to communicate. Then, looking around for a third time, it saw us, and unfolded its wings then began flying towards us. It raised its 'arms'.

"What the hell is that?" demanded Griggs,

"Do you think it's hostile?"

As a precaution, I picked up one of the two-by-four's that had fallen from the roof and held it ready to strike the alien. It landed about two yards away from me.

"OK...Mr Alien...don't do anything rash...ah-!" In less than a second, the beast had darted forward and slashed me across the thigh. It hurt, but I hardly noticed. I panicked, and on impulse used the two-by-four to smack the beast. I struck it in the side, and knocked it onto it's back. It flailed around madly, like a turtle on it's back, but as I brought the two-by-four down onto it's underside it suddenly stopped moving. Looking at the two-by-four, I saw it was covered in a viscous green goo.

"What the hell was that thing?" I demanded, dropping the two-by-four.

"Sheck, you're bleeding!" exclaimed Zoey,

I looked down, and sure enough my thigh was oozing blood from a long laceration. Now that I noticed it, it began to hurt. Zoey rushed to the car to get the first aid kit.

"You OK, bro?" asked Griggs, his face white.

"I'll survive, as long as that thing wasn't poisonous." I said, trying not to let on that I was in a lot of pain. Zoey returned with a cloth, bottle of disinfectant and bandage. She led me inside the house. "Griggs, can you grab the handgun from the car?" I called, "You know, in case there are more."

Griggs retrieved it, looking at the dead thing with a worried look on his face on his way back. He didn't take his eyes off it for the next ten minutes, even when he was inside.

Now inside, I sat down and Zoey began cleaning the cut.

"Did you see where that thing came from?" she said, "That green ball? It looked like one of the portals Dad told me about from Black Mesa." Zoey wasn't supposed to tell us about her father's work, but we were her best friends.

"Think it was connected with the resonance cascade?" I asked,

"Can't be, Dad said it was contained. Some dude, Friedman, or Fischman, or something, he went to Xen to activate some machine or kill someone or something, and that closed the portal. Dad doesn't know the specifics, because he escaped before then, but his friend Dr Kliener says that the scientist died attempting it, because they never heard from him or found a body. Anyway, that happened four years ago, you'd think that something would have happened by now if it hadn't been stopped."

"Some inter galactic time matrix thingy perhaps?" asked Griggs, trying to sound smart.

"You know," I interjected, "If I didn't live by a strict code of honor, I might take advantage of this situation." Zoey was kneeling at my feet, bandaging the cut on my thigh. Her face was awfully close to my crotch, and at this comment she glared at me and suddenly tightened the bandage, sending a jerk of pain down my leg. "Ow! OK, point taken." I said, slightly meekly.

"I dunno. Dad went onto Xen once or twice, he never told me about any of this. It could be-"

Zoey was interrupted by a familiar screech. Looking out the window, we saw a pack of about five of these peculiar beasts, in about the same place the first one had appeared. They didn't notice us, though, as we were inside, cowering below the window. Peering up I saw one run over to the cliff face supporting the road. It tapped the face with its claw, then screeched again. Emerging from the pack of aliens came something different to the other beasts. This looked more like an ant, but was a pale green, had a segmented body and was about half the height, but twice the length of the other things.. It ran towards the alien at the cliff and screeched at the other, which screeched back. After exchanging loud screeches for a time, the first one began to retch, if that was even possible in an alien like that. After a few retches, a large glob of mucus shot from it's mouth and struck the cliff face with surprising force. It hissed, loudly enough to hear from where we were, and actually melted the rock. Within a minute, there was a head-sized hole. The alien shot the saliva again, and again. Soon the hole had grown large enough for the alien to stand in, then ten minutes after that for the other aliens to crawl into, and still, the alien shot its saliva. Within half an hour, it had made a tunnel, and all the aliens could fit into it. Before the hour was out, the last one had disappeared completely from view. We sat in the house, petrified, hardly speaking, and in another half hour we saw several more portals appear and about a dozen more teleported in. When we hadn't seen any for fifteen minutes, we deemed it safe to talk.

"What the hell were those things?" I demanded.

"I don't know. Did you see how they were working? It looked like ant colonies, we studied them in science a few years back."

Zoey looked excited. She had always been interested in science, and despite her father being a physicist, she had always been into biology. "These things are intriguing, but if they're anything like ants they'll breed like rabbits. We need to get word to my dad. Any way we can contact him?"

"We should just go to New Little Odessa. They have some basic communication facilities."

"Lets do that. Shall we leave soon?" asked Griggs.

"Yeah, lets just get the stuff out of the car. I'd prefer it to be inside with all those antlions around."

As we did, I explained about New Little Odessa.

"It's, like, three buildings. There's an Inn, a General store and some storage. The whole place is run by some old British dude. He's OK, just a bit too nice. He's supposed to be an ex-marine or something, the name is Colonel Odessa Cubbage. He lives there with maybe five others, and they take in people for the night. Lets go. I think we should take the gun in case we see any of those antlions. Let's walk. Taking the car will just be a hassle, and it's only about a fifteen-twenty minute walk. I hope no one minds if I carry the gun?"


End file.
